Fennell is not the first director to transform the darkness at the heart of this novel into a romantic film. In 1939, William Wyler released an adaptation produced by MGM, which became a global success and received eight Oscar nominations, establishing Wuthering Heights as a revered pop culture icon. In this version, Heathcliff – played by the devastatingly handsome Laurence Olivier – is a lovelorn, disappointed romantic, far more sympathetic than the character in Brontë's novel.Gone, for example, is the abuse inflicted on children, on his own wife Isabella – whom he marries purely out of revenge – as well as on various animals, especially dogs. In the novel, Brontë often uses cruelty toward animals as a metaphor for domestic violence. "To show battered women directly would have been considered too shocking at the time. So what Emily Brontë does is transfer that violence from the woman's body to that of an animal," explained Athéna Sol, a literature teacher and researcher, in a YouTube video on the subject. The original Heathcliff hangs Isabella's spaniel from a hook before marrying her – a grim foreshadowing of what he will later put her through.In Fennell's film, these acts of violence have not disappeared entirely, but have instead been reframed as part of a consensual sexual game with Isabella, in the vein of the soft-core erotic romance Fifty Shades of Grey, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and released in 2015.What is entirely left out, however, is the racist violence suffered by Heathcliff. In the novel, he is described as a "gypsy" and "dark-skinned," whose appearance unsettles everyone. He is found by Catherine's family in Liverpool, one of England's main slave-trading ports in the early 19th century. Given that Brontë grew up amid fierce debate over the abolition of slavery, that detail is no mere accident. The film industry has often ignored it, instead casting White actors – from Olivier to the Australian Elordi. Only in 2011 did British director Andrea Arnold cast a Black actor for the role. Her version also included the hanging of Isabella's spaniel, scenes of domestic violence and a necrophilia sequence that is strongly suggested in the novel. In short, the work's deeply political elements remain largely ill-suited to the Valentine's Day tie-in. (Margaux Baralon)
I find it quite serendipitous that my first ever trip to Yorkshire coincided with the cinematic release of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights.As a Brontë-obsessed teen (and later, swoopy Kate Bush kitchen disco fan), I always had romantic notions about the stark landscapes these literary sisters existed within, holed up in their parsonage at the edge of the moors scribbling about doomed love while the wind howled around them like restless ghosts.A whimsical image some would say, but let’s face it, indulging in a little bit of whimsy these days is good for the soul, which is why spending a weekend at Denton Reserve in the heart of the Yorkshire countryside was the perfect getaway for this Brontë superfan – if only to escape the scandalised chaos of Wuthering Heights content being unleashed on social media, and indulge in the fantasy that I’d be looking out across the same vistas that backdropped Emily’s gothic masterpiece over 150 years ago (albeit in a far more luxurious setting than some drafty old parsonage). (Amie-Jo Locke)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë“It was only while re-reading this book a few years ago that I realised this wasn’t just the coming-of-age story I’d always assumed it to be. First published under the pen name of Currer Bell in 1847, Jane Eyre is also a masterclass in psychological suspense with all the hallmarks of the genre: the first-person narrator with a dark past, the creepy old house, the strange noises and goings-on in the dead of night, the twists and turns, the lies, deceit, and fear.“When Jane arrives at Thornfield Hall to be a governess, she soon picks up that there is something strange about both the mansion, with its rambling corridors and forbidden spaces, and its elusive master, Mr Rochester. Is the house haunted? And what is the secret in the attic?”
Retold by Maggie PearsonIllustrated by Lia VisirinFranklin WattsISBN: 9781445197593March 2026Beautifully simple abridged versions of the Classics for a young new audience.In this story based on Charlotte Bronte’s original text, Jane Eyre overcomes hard beginnings to become governess at the Thornfield Hall where she encounters the handsome but stern Mr Rochester. But as time goes on she feels the house may be hiding an eerie secret …Enter the world of literary classics with these expertly retold chapter books for young readers. Atmospheric and evocative colour artwork accompanies accessible text in a dyslexia friendly-font. Extra features include a short biography of Charlotte Bronte, plus some extra facts and comprehension exercises at the back of the book to help students study the text in more depth. A brilliant edition for all classrooms and perfect for readers age 7+ making the next step to longer texts.
It’s been a month since Wuthering Heights was released in cinemas and the Cathy/Heathcliff fever is still burning. But if Emerald Fennel’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel deviated too far from the original story for your taste, you’re likely to find more to love about Essie Fox’s recent literary reimagining, Catherine.Shifting the perspective from the original book’s narrators – outsider Mr Lockwood and insider Nelly Dean – to that of Catherine Linton, née Earnshaw, we follow the titular character as she forms a fierce and unbreakable bond with a foundling boy her father rescues from the streets of Liverpool. As they grow older, Catherine and Heathcliff’s friendship evolves into an intense love. But everything changes when Catherine’s father dies, leaving her bitter and pitiless brother as master of the house. Heathcliff is reduced to servitude and Catherine, desperate to save him, turns to her kindly neighbour, Edgar, believing that her marriage to a wealthy heir will free Heathcliff from cruelty. Reader, it does not. [...]I first read Wuthering Heights almost two decades ago and whilst the specific details of the story have faded with time, that haunting backdrop and the intensity of the characters has stuck with me ever since. It’s a relief to read Essie Fox’s take on Cathy and Heathcliff’s destructive relationship and still recognise the gothic backbone that made Brontë’s story such a seminal novel. Catherine is steeped in the kind of dark and moody atmosphere that makes you live and breathe every part of the book. It helps that the setting is almost a character in itself; Fox captures the rugged, windswept Yorkshire moors with a cinematic wildness that’s both brutal and beautiful.The same words can be used to describe the story’s central duo too. As children, they’re equally charming in their own ways – Catherine is passionate, spirited and open with her affections, whilst Heathcliff is quiet, compassionate and empathetic. It’s easy to like their younger selves, but much harder to like who they grow up to become. As a woman and a wife, Catherine’s youthful tendency towards immaturity and selfishness is amplified. Heathcliff, on the other hand, has become an entirely different person. Having shed the softness that made Catherine love him in the first place, he’s made himself into a monster purely to torture those who tortured him. And yet, toxic and terrible as they both are, they remain sympathetic characters – which is no mean feat.By framing the narrative around Catherine’s POV, Fox gives her novel an urgency that really delves into the character’s deep inner turmoil. The book leans more heavily into parts of Brontë’s story that were only hinted at or briefly touched upon, which really ups the tragedy, trauma and emotional torment the characters wrestle with. Wuthering Heights was never supposed to be a romantic love story but there is still love to be found in all the misery, whether it’s housekeeper and mother figure Nelly Dean’s love for the children under her care, or in Catherine’s love for the daughter she never had a chance to know, or the ghost of the boy who deserved a kinder life than he was given.If you want to read a classic novel with a modern touch, Catherine delivers all the obsessive yearning, eerie chills and untamed insanity you could hope for in a Wuthering Heights reimagining. It’s an absorbing and detailed historical novel that will please fans of the original, whilst introducing new readers to Brontë’s literary genius – which is exactly what retellings should do. (Natalie Xenos)
Grey skies, gravestones and misty moors might not seem like the obvious ingredients for a viral social media post.Yet since the release of Wuthering Heights, influencers’ and BookTokers’ gloomy content has inspired hundreds to descend upon a village on the edge of the Pennine moors.There has been an influx of younger visitors to Haworth in West Yorkshire, where the Brontë sisters lived, buying copies of Wuthering Heights and occasionally wearing costumes inspired by Cathy, the story’s female protagonist.The interest in the village, which is typically busy during the summer but less so during colder months, has filled up car parks and prompted businesses to extend their opening hours.Brontë-related attractions include the parsonage, where the family lived, the church, where Charlotte and Emily are buried, and the post office, where the sisters posted their manuscripts.Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse on the moors above, is believed to have inspired the location of Wuthering Heights.Although Emerald Fennell’s adaptation was not filmed in Haworth, she used locations across Swaledale and Langthwaite in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, now signposted on the Visit North Yorkshire website.Dani Leigh, 33, a travel blogger from Manchester, decided to visit Haworth with her partner for Valentine’s Day in anticipation of the film’s release that weekend. She said it was busy with other tourists.She posted videos of her visit, overlaid by Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights and the caption, “If you’re a literature girlie, a dark academia lover or a whimsy traveller, you need to go to Haworth.”Leigh told The Times: “It was amazing to wander the same streets that the Brontës would have done. With the strong winds, sweeping moors and cobbled streets, I can definitely see how Wuthering Heights came to be written.”The film, which puts the title of the novel in quotation marks, received mixed reviews from book fans, who criticised the casting of Heathcliff and changes to the original plot. The headline stars and press tour outfits, however, helped the film gross $80 million domestically and over $130 million internationally and brought younger generations to the Brontë story.Staff at the Brontë Parsonage Museum said they welcomed double the number of visitors this February half-term compared to the same time last year. The shop also sold 388 copies of Wuthering Heights, double the amount it usually sells in a week.On Saturday, March 7, the museum welcomed 590 visitors, a figure they would typically expect at the height of August.“Comments in the visitors’ book reveal that some people have been inspired to visit after seeing the film, and we did spot a visitor last week channelling Margot Robbie’s look in the film, complete with ribbon-braided hair,” Diane Fare, a staff member, said.Mark Graham, the operations manager at The Hawthorn restaurant and co-owner of Haworth Old Post Office café, said, “I live opposite the Brontë Parsonage, and therefore I can see the car park … and it’s full every day.“It used to be the case that it was full in June, July, August, at weekends. Now it’s full when you look out on a Wednesday or a Thursday.“People are parking outside the village, up on to the moors, on the road and then walking in.”He said that the Old Post Office recently had a queue outside its door before it opened, while each weekend the café has 70 to 80 bookings a day despite only accommodating 50 covers.“Haworth used to be coach trips, pensioners, there’s now a lot of younger people, and you’re seeing your sales rise of things like matcha, Valencia lattes,” he said.He added that the café had been selling 20 copies of Wuthering Heights a week.Jamila Juma-Ware, 42, co-owns Writers Bloc, a bar which hosts book clubs and serves Brontë Bramble cocktails.“It’s gone from being almost like a ghost town in January, February, when it’s really chilly,” she said, to “an influx of influencers and people via social media coming to take a look.”“I don’t think anything of our time has kind of had this much impact in terms of this tourist drive.“It’s been such a hotly debated topic this film … I think just that kind of talk appeal mixed with social media has created this kind of frenzy.”Cobbles and Clay, a pottery painting café, noticed the trend online when their social media platforms soared from 41,000 views in January to 98,500.There was so much interest in a Brontë quote on display in the café that the owners offered visitors free copies of the poem the quote was taken from. In two weeks, the staff said 240 copies have been taken.Around 20 minutes drive from Haworth is Holdsworth House hotel, where the cast, including Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, stayed for the final night of filming in 2025.Chris Meehan, the general manager, estimated the film had boosted his usual bookings during the “quieter months” by around 15 per cent.“The film is on the tip of everybody’s tongue. Everybody’s either seen it or wants to see it,” he said, adding that more guests had pre-planned visits to the Brontë attractions.Wuthering Heights? I don’t recall Emily Brontë writing about masturbationDue to demand, the hotel introduced a Brontë Country Escape package, which includes tickets to the parsonage museum.AirBnB also temporarily installed “Cathy’s bedroom” on the site, after searches for West Yorkshire Valentine’s getaways increased by 67 per cent among UK Gen Z travellers and 59 per cent globally.In the Yorkshire Dales National Park, Andrew Hields operates both the Tan Hill Inn and the Green Dragon, near filming locations.He said they had hosted a “smattering of influencers” at both pubs, including Italians and Germans trying Yorkshire pudding and posing by the fireplace.“We always say that if Cathy and Heathcliff ever went on a pub date, they would meet at Tan Hill Inn,” Hields said. (Lara Wildenberg)
In early 2026, a museum employee at the Brontë Parsonage described the weeks after the release of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation as “mind-blowing”. Visitors from America were turning up in numbers the parsonage doesn’t usually see outside peak summer. People who had never read the book bought it on the way in. The cobbled main street filled up on weekday mornings. It was, by most accounts, the most concentrated burst of interest in a very long time.None of this was new, exactly. Haworth has been doing this for over 130 years. What’s worth asking is how it started, what it actually built, and whether literary tourism – the kind that rests entirely on three writers who died in their thirties – is a stable foundation or just a very old habit.There’s a pattern in how people approach places with a strong cultural pull. Whether someone is planning a walk to Top Withens or deciding which casinacho casino to try on a leisure trip, the decision tends to start the same way – with research, with a story someone already believes, with a destination that promises to match an expectation. Haworth has been selling that match for a very long time. The question is whether it still delivers.How literary tourism in Haworth actually beganThe Brontë Society formed in 1893, two years after Charlotte’s biography by Elizabeth Gaskell had already turned the parsonage into a place people actively wanted to visit. Earnest readers were knocking on the door through most of the 1870s and 80s – the Society simply institutionalised what was already happening. In its first year of formal operation, roughly 10,000 visitors came through. By the 1930s, when the parsonage was purchased and opened as a museum, that number had grown substantially.What the Brontës did to Haworth was not subtle. Before the family arrived in 1820, the village was a working industrial township. Patrick Brontë’s appointment as curate brought him to a place with an estimated 1,200 working handlooms, 13 small textile mills, and public health conditions that would horrify anyone reading about them now. An 1850 report found that more than two in five children died before their sixth birthday. Average life expectancy sat under 26 years. Haworth was not a destination. It was a place people tried to survive.The Brontës didn’t transform it while they were alive – they mostly just lived there, often miserably. The transformation came after their deaths, when their novels became canonical, their short lives became the subject of biography and mythology, and the physical place they had occupied became somewhere people felt compelled to see for themselves. That process took decades. It never really stopped.What the economy of Haworth actually looks like nowToday, with a population of around 6,000, Haworth functions almost entirely as a tourism economy. The 2019 Retail and Leisure Study for Bradford District found that the village centre exists primarily to serve visitors rather than residents. Of 55 retail units on the main street, 28 cater almost exclusively to the tourist market – gifts, craft shops, art galleries, second-hand books. The convenience retail that a normal village needs is thin.The Brontë Parsonage Museum draws between 70,000 and 80,000 visitors annually in ordinary years. The Bradford district as a whole attracts 12 million visitors per year, generating an economic contribution of £696 million and sustaining 14,000 jobs. Haworth accounts for a meaningful slice of that cultural draw, alongside Saltaire and the city’s other heritage sites. [...]The parts of Haworth that have nothing to do with the BrontësHere is where the story gets more interesting. Haworth has always had a second tourism strand running alongside the literary one, and it doesn’t involve parsonages or moors at all.The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway opened in 1867 – six years after Charlotte’s father died in the parsonage, ending the family’s direct connection to the place. The five-mile heritage line has since appeared in The Railway Children, Yanks, Alan Parker’s The Wall, and numerous other productions. It runs its own visitor events throughout the year and draws an audience that has no particular interest in Victorian literature. It attracts railway enthusiasts, film location tourists, families on school holidays.The annual 1940s Weekend, which fills Haworth’s cobbled street with people in wartime dress, draws coachloads from across Yorkshire. The Christmas Market does something similar in December. Neither of these events connects to the Brontës in any direct sense – they function on the village’s physical character: the stone buildings, the narrow streets, the preserved appearance of a mid-19th century settlement. The Brontës didn’t create that character. The village’s industrial past and the absence of postwar redevelopment did. The Brontës just made people look.What happened in early 2026The release of a major Wuthering Heights film adaptation in February 2026 produced the most immediate and measurable spike in Brontë tourism in recent memory. Staff at the Parsonage described visitor interest as unlike anything seen outside peak summer months. People arrived from North America and continental Europe specifically because of the film. The museum ran an exhibition – Haunt Me Then… and Now: Wuthering Heights on the Big Screen – to meet that interest directly.This is not the first time a film or television adaptation has done this. Every major screen version of the novels produces some version of the same effect. The 2011 Jane Eyre adaptation added a visible peak to parsonage visitor numbers that year. The pattern is consistent: adaptation releases, visitors arrive within weeks, numbers return to baseline after several months. The spike is real. Its duration is finite.Whether the original proposition still holdsThe honest answer is yes, but with caveats. Three things keep Haworth’s Brontë tourism working across 130 years where other literary destinations have faded:The novels are still read and still taught – they are not obscure or dated in the way that drives other literary sites toward decline; Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights remain on school syllabuses internationally.The parsonage is physically intact and genuinely interesting as a place – the rooms are small, the moorland setting is immediate, the family history is extraordinary enough to hold attention without being dressed up.Screen adaptations keep arriving every decade or so, each one resetting the cultural clock and sending a new generation to Haworth who might not have gone otherwise.The village’s second tourism strand – heritage railway, events calendar, moorland walking – absorbs visitors who arrive for the Brontës and then find other reasons to stay.What does not hold is the idea that literary tourism is self-sustaining or risk-free. The Brontë Parsonage is a charity-run operation that depends on ticket sales, memberships, and event income. When visitor numbers drop – as they did during the pandemic and in poor weather years – the financial pressure is real and the consequences fall directly on the building and its collections.Haworth as a place is also not without tension. The village centre reads, by Bradford’s own planning documents, as a tourist economy that serves visitors rather than residents. That works when visitors are arriving. It creates a fragile local retail structure when they are not. The butcher and the pharmacy are not the main businesses on Main Street. The souvenir shops are.What the Brontës did to Haworth was remarkable, durable, and, on the evidence of early 2026, still capable of producing something close to frenzy when the right film lands. Whether that constitutes a solid foundation depends on what you think a foundation needs to do. It has lasted 130 years. It also needs a new film every decade to keep the numbers moving.
Every few years, Heathcliff trends again. A new adaptation is announced, a new actor is cast, and suddenly we are filled with declarations that this is the ultimate love story. Once more, Heathcliff is portrayed as intense, irresistible. Once more, we are invited to fall for him. And I find myself asking the question: did we read the same book?Heathcliff is framed less as Brontë’s embodiment of obsession and cruelty, and more as a misunderstood romantic hero whose violence is merely the byproduct of heartbreak. The cultural script is familiar: he is damaged, intense, difficult. But he’s redeemable. The question worth asking is not whether the latest adaptation succeeds or fails. It is why we are so determined to rescue Heathcliff from the novel. Because the Heathcliff on the page is not merely brooding, he is methodical in his revenge. He marries Isabella Linton not out of passion, but to punish her brother; he abuses her and hangs her dog before the marriage even begins. He brutalises his own sickly son. He manipulates the young Cathy Linton to extend his resentment to the next generation. This is not moral ambiguity. It is sustained, deliberate harm.What is often lost in adaptation, and in popular memory, is the second half of the novel. Many versions prefer to linger in the feverish intimacy of Catherine’s death, freezing Heathcliff in a posture of eternal grief. But Brontë does not grant him that romantic stasis. He lives on, not chastened but hardened. He does not simply suffer; he cultivates suffering. Even her death, so often aestheticised as tragic romance, is somewhat darker in the text. Heathcliff begs her ghost to haunt him, he asks not for peace, but for perpetual disturbance. This is not a love that seeks healing. It is not a romantic attachment but a consummating obsession. Modern adaptations keep the windswept declarations and lose the cruelty. “I am Heathcliff” survives, the bruises and manipulation don’t. The result is a softer Heathcliff, wounded rather than monstrous. In a culture obsessed with the “morally grey” man, intensity is mistaken for intimacy. Heathcliff begins to look less like a warning and more like a prototype.The casting of Jacob Elordi in the latest adaptation makes this shift clear. Elordi arrives already seen as a romantic ideal. He is globally recognisable and algorithmically desirable. But in Brontë’s novel, Heathcliff is described as “dark-skinned gypsy,” a stray of obscure origin whose presence unsettles the household from the beginning. His otherness is racialised and classed. He is seen as foreign, animalistic. That exclusion is not incidental; it shapes both his humiliation and his rage. When Heathcliff is re-imagined as a conventionally beautiful, culturally adored leading man, the dynamic changes. The unsettling outsider becomes an object of aspiration. His persona is aestheticised. We are no longer confronted with a figure whose difference destabilises the social order; we are invited to desire him. And here the algorithm quietly hovers in the background. Contemporary culture is structured around repetition and desirability. Certain faces circulate. Certain archetypes trend. We consume variations of the same romantic template. When an idealised heartthrob plays Heathcliff, we do not meet the character neutrally. We import desire into him. The cultural machinery has already decided he is someone to want.What cannot be so easily re-framed, however, is the extremity of Brontë’s original vision; a man who hangs dogs, terrorises children, and clings to his own resentment as a form of identity. That version resists romantic branding. It is too abrasive, too uncompromising, too uninterested in redemption. So, we adjust him. We explain his violence as trauma. We disguise his obsession as devotion. But Wuthering Heights offers no redemption arc. Heathcliff does not apologise, evolve, or transcend his bitterness. He persists in it until it consumes him. The novel’s bleakness is structural, not decorative. Love here is not glorified. The moors are not a backdrop for swooning romance but a symbol of emotional extremity.So why do we keep re-writing him?Perhaps because the idea of an unredeemable man is intolerable. It is easier to imagine that cruelty hides vulnerability than to confront the possibility that some forms of love are simply destructive. We want the aesthetic of darkness without its implications. Maybe the real discomfort of Wuthering Heights is that it refuses to reassure us. Heathcliff does not become better, love does not fix him, time does not soften him. The novel leaves us with a man who chooses bitterness again and again, and calls it devotion. Each generation produces its own Heathcliff. In doing so, we reveal less about what Brontë intended and more about what we desire.The question is no longer whether Heathcliff is redeemable.It is why we need him to be. (Lola Mandalaoui)
What makes this film so great, in my opinion, is that it refuses to be orderly. For every declaration of love, there is pitiless cruelty. For every moment of sheer tenderness, there is a wound that is reopened and left to bleed. Fennell allows room for seamless contradictions, and she does not at any point attempt to soften edges or make it more palatable. It remains erratic, selfish, obsessive, and utterly human. I will not go as far as to suggest that it is the most provocative film I’ve seen, but it is making its way up there. There is something romantic and erotic about the griminess and chaos that defines the film and subsequently Cathy and Heathcliff’s romance. It’s not meet-cute, candlelit dinner, standing-outside-your-window-with-a-boombox romantic, but rather something so deeply feral and intimate that it is destructive.I left the movie theater in shambles. The only other movie that makes me cry this much is Titanic (which I was not allowed to watch as a child because I would have a nervous breakdown every. single. time). But this was different. This is the type of movie that shifts something in your soul, leaving you feeling helpless and empty, yet so very full. It’s been about two weeks since I’ve seen it, and it still has me by the throat. I applaud Emerald Fennell for not trying to tame “Wuthering Heights” and letting it exist in all its wildness and glory. She embraced the obsession, brutality, and anguish that can only exist within unrequited love—and had fun doing it. It’s a visual tour de force with a soundtrack that will stop you dead in your tracks every time you hear it.Some films entertain you for however long they are, and some linger in your heart and head, leaving you haunted and wondering how something so fleeting can feel so eternal.I give it a 4.5/5. Some part of me never quite made it back from the moors. (Sama Farrag)
Robbie and Elordi appear to be acting in different movies. Elordi is inert early on, wandering shirtless and brooding without much projection; later, as a sleek avenger, he’s slyly amusing but never convincingly dangerous.Robbie fills the frame with a committed but undisciplined performance. As often happens when she lacks firm directorial guidance, she pours twenty gallons into a ten-gallon bucket.The two leads generate neither chemistry nor heat. Considering their self-immolating bond is the story’s engine, this is disastrous.There is no fire here. “Wuthering Heights” becomes a whirling stylistic dervish with no heart, no soul, no passion. Dirty words and dirty bits are flung at us, but without conviction. The film doesn’t end with Fennell winking into the camera — but it comes close, finishing on a smirk that says more than perhaps it intends. (C.B. Jacobson)
In a 1970 interview with Peter Burton, Jean Rhys, fresh off the success of her 1967 novel Wide Sargasso Sea, was asked about her reasons for making Bertha Mason, or as she’s known in WSS, Antoinette, the central lynchpin of the novel. The consequences of this literary act are not insignificant: in writing what is effectively a prequel to Bronte’s 1847 bestseller Jane Eyre but focussing on the “horrible white indian” woman, Rhys reframes Antoinette and gives her a voice outside of her captivity. She becomes a complex, lonely woman rather than the mad villain. Rhys replied with almost comical honesty: “I had always wanted to write about her […] she’s not a true character at all, unlike Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester, so I wrote her life”. (Lottie Roddis)
New York-based luxury knitwear brand Lingua Franca — celebrated for its hand-embroidered cashmere pieces and literary sensibility — partnered with Wuthering Heights 2026 for a limited-edition capsule collection launched in January 2025, timed to the film's Valentine's Day release.The collection was on display at the movie's junket in Los Angeles, where Jacob Elordi himself was spotted admiring the logo Maxine Sweater and even asked to purchase one. The collection comprises 15 pieces across three silhouettes: the iconic Maxine Sweater (a cotton-cashmere relaxed crewneck), the Women's Crewneck in pure cashmere, and the Classic Cardigan — all rendered in diferent colours: Black, Cream, Navy, Pale Pink, Oatmeal, Sea, and Smoke.Each piece is hand-embroidered with phrases pulled straight from the soul of Brontë's story and the film's script:
- "be with me always — take any form"
- "so kiss me again"
- "come undone"
- "drive me mad"
- "forever after"
- The Wuthering Heights logo motif
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Cannonball with Wesley MorrisValentine’s Day weekend is over, and we’re left with a new film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” Audiences are hot, bothered and swooning. Can you blame them? The trailer had promised — and the film delivers — a stunning Margot Robbie, a seductive Jacob Elordi and a lot of sticky substances (like, a lot.) Wesley Morris knows sex and shock to be the director Emerald Fennell’s specialty, and this flick is no different. But where’s the actual substance? To confront his suspicion head on, Wesley takes a movie buddy, the culture editor Sasha Weiss, to see the film that’s got everybody and their lovers in knots.
Wuthering: A Musical on the MoorsBy Hannah GregoryWorld PremiereMainStageDirected by Caitlin McWethyApril 2-18, 2027Rated: PG-131787, Yorkshire, England. After her father’s death, the once bright and wild Cathy Earnshaw marries the wealthy Edgar Linton, in order to provide financial security for herself and her true love, Heathcliff. Devastated by her betrayal, Heathcliff disappears for three years, only to return as a wealthy man intent upon seeking his revenge. An original folk musical inspired by Emily Brontë’s classic novel about the socioeconomic anxieties of love, class, and race in Victorian England.
The world premiere of Lucy Gough’s adaptation of Anne Brontë’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ will be performed at Aberystwyth Arts Centre this month.Theatr Gymunedol Aberystwyth Community Theatre present Gough’s version of Brontë’s novel on Friday, 20 March at 7.30pm, and on Saturday, 21 March at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. [...]Commenting on the novel, Aberystwyth writer and director, Lucy Gough said: “Anne Brontë wrote a brilliant novel and I have worked with Aberystwyth Arts Centre Community Theatre to bring this to life on stage.“It has been an exciting journey, from novel, to script and now stage. I hope people new to the novel will be stimulated to read and enjoy it and those who know it find the play opens up fresh ways of understanding it.”This is the second time that Lucy’s love of ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ has resulted in a new production.In 2024, loosely inspired by Brontë’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’, Lucy’s then new play called, ‘The Wild Tenant’ explored the complexity of a relationship overwhelmed by someone with addiction. (Julie McNicholls Vale)
Margot Robbie starrer R-rated romance drama collected $3.7 million at the domestic box office on its 4th three weekend. It lost 709 theaters in North America and is now running on only 2512 screens. On Monday, the film added another $332k at the box office in North America. It dropped by 46.5% from last Monday.According to Box Office Mojo‘s latest data, Wuthering Heights’ domestic total has hit $79.06 million cume in 25 days. After its 4th weekend, the film’s overseas total has reached $134.9 million, bringing the worldwide total to $213.9 million. It is the second-highest-grossing film worldwide in 2026.Worldwide collection breakdown
- Domestic – $79.0 million
- International – $134.9 million
- Worldwide – $213.9 million (Esita Mallik)
The movie Pegasus 3 has become the big box office phenomenon of 2026, accumulating a global total of 529.6 million dollars, making it the highest-grossing film of the year.Directed by Han Han, the film follows the story of Zhang Chi, a veteran car racer who leads a team in an international rally. Released in China on February 17 and in other markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia on February 23, Pegasus 3 has surpassed the previous leader, Wuthering Heights, which had achieved 192 million dollars. (Jesús Bosque)
La temática de la Feria del Libro de 2026 de San Fernando estará centrada en la literatura victoriana y de regencia, centrándose en personajes como Sherlock Holmes, Drácula, Jane Eyre, Dorian Gray, Doctor Jekyll y Mr. Hyde, entre otros. Se desarrollará del 15 al 20 de junio en la Plaza del Rey (José F. Cabeza) (Translation)
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Ivam Cada AlcoiCarrer Rigobert Albors, 6, 03801 Alcoi, Alicante13 Mar 2026 | 20:00Guiem Soldevila: voice, guitar and pianoClara Gorrias: voice and fluteNeus Ferri: voiceLluís Gener: double bassGêliah: dance and narrationEduard Florit: sound engineerBrontë is Guiem Soldevila's new album, a singular work that invites the listener to journey through the inner and literary landscape of the Brontë sisters — Charlotte, Emily and Anne — through their poetry, conveyed through music.Brontë has been conceived as an encounter between English literature and contemporary music, with a particular emphasis on the poetic depth of the authors and on vocal and instrumental sonic textures. The production incorporates cellos, harps, piano, synthesizers, double bass, guitars and percussion, seeking a balance between restraint and depth, between texture and minimalism.Guiem's voice is combined with those of Clara Gorrias and Neus Ferri, creating a rich vocal tapestry that guides the listener through the different registers of the Brontës: Charlotte's narrative power, Anne's emotional intensity and Emily's creative freedom. The album includes thirteen original poems — or poetic adaptations by the Brontë sisters — turning each track into a small literary and musical universe.
Jane Eyre, a musical by John Caird and Paul Gordon, based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë, will receive its UK Premiere at Southwark Playhouse Elephant for a strictly limited season from 28 August – 24 October.The show will be co-directed by RSC and National Theatre director John Caird, who previously adapted and co-directed the original production of Les Misérables in the West End, on Broadway and across the world. Most recently he directed the hugely successful and critically acclaimed stage adaptation of Spirited Away at the London Coliseum. Broadway’s Megan McGinnis, star of Beauty and the Beast, Little Women and Beetlejuice, will co-direct alongside John Caird. Casting and full creative team will be announced soon.John Caird said: “I’m so pleased to have the opportunity to explore a new version of Jane Eyre in the beautifully intimate Southwark Playhouse Elephant. It's always a pleasure to work on this timeless romance but all the more exciting to be collaborating with the brilliant and innovative Megan McGinnis as co-director.”Paul Gordon added: “I’m beyond thrilled to finally bring the musical of Jane Eyre to the UK. Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece is not only a landmark portrayal of a strong female protagonist, but a story that sends audiences out of the theatre feeling better about their own lives than when they walked in.”
It's Mother's Day in the UK this Sunday and so The Telegraph and Argus recommends a tour and afternoon tea at the Brontë Birthplace as a treat.Timed for Mother’s Day, the birthplace in Thornton is hosting a guided tour and afternoon tea in the house where the Brontë children were born.Thomas Haigh, marketing and IT lead at the Brontë Birthplace, said: "Visiting the historic house where the Brontë children were born is not just a unique gift but also meaningful for anyone with an interest in history or literature."It is the perfect way to honour mothers, grandmothers, and mother figures as well as being a thoughtful and memorable way to spend time together on Mother’s Day."The tour explores the rooms where the Brontë children spent their early years and highlights the influence of their mother, Maria Brontë.As part of a fundraising effort, the Brontë Birthplace is also selling limited edition framed beam segments taken from the house.Each piece comes with a certificate of authenticity and a brief history of its origin.The event includes a one-hour guided tour and a 90-minute afternoon tea in the birthplace’s tearoom.Funds raised from both the Mother’s Day event and beam sales will support the birthplace’s continued operation as a museum and education centre. (Harry Williams)
Wuthering Heights, by Emily BrontëLast month, after I saw Emerald Fennell’s new adaptation of Brontë’s Gothic tragedy, my fellow filmgoers all seemed to be asking one thing: So, how much of that appeared in the book? The answer is not much—Fennell makes explicit, via sadomasochism, the power differentials and emotional degradations that are so often ambiguous in the original. Brontë’s novel is much weirder and more subtle than virtually all of its screen adaptations, most of which ignore the book’s violent second half entirely in favor of the more straightforward, though doomed, love affair between Cathy and Heathcliff. Readers will soon discover that this is only part of the plot, as the book introduces their respective children; then, cycles of abuse repeated across generations become integral to the novel’s twisting story-within-a-story. Reading it offers the chance to confirm definitively to your group chat that, no, BDSM-style power plays do not show up in the original—but there are enough disinterments, shocking turns, and ghost sightings to make up for them. (Rhian Sasseen)
I should preface this with the fact I haven’t read Wuthering Heights yet. Thus, my experience of the characters is informed entirely by Emerald Fennell’s controversial movie adaptation. Criticism of the film focuses on the lack of chemistry between Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi), casted as a white man to play an originally non-white character in the novel, the gross historical inaccuracies in the costuming and overall set decoration. However, no one seems to be discussing the characterization and treatment of Nelly Dean (Hong Chau). [...]I assume in the novel, Cathy and Nelly’s characterizations are treated with respect, showing how both women are flawed in different ways. However, Fennell’s adaptation treats neither character with the dignity of complexity, instead relegating Cathy to the constantly validated protagonist and Nelly to the villain.Although definitively not an angel, Nelly’s portrayal in the narrative as an almost Judas-level betrayer is incredibly unfair. Her status as an illegitimate lord’s daughter prevented her from both a childhood and a life, forcing her into a role she must remain in until Cathy dies. Additionally, Cathy's continual behavior as a spoiled and unlikable person who frequently looks down on Nelly leaves her justified in her resentment.Nelly is many things, but she is not the main villain. There is no villain. They all suck. (Kate LaGatta)
Although “Wuthering Heights” may stumble when it comes to substance, it never falters in craft. Cinematographer Linus Sandgren (returning from "Saltburn") delivers a number of wallpaper-worthy shots of the Yorkshire Dales, the sumptuous setpieces of Thrushcross Grange are undeniably breathtaking and Charli xcx's soundtrack contributions add considerable texture to the film’s Gothic atmosphere.“Wuthering Heights” looks and sounds wonderful — but peer beneath the floorboards, and you’ll find nothing there. (Albert Zhu)
Since it is a milestone of classic literature, the novel has inspired numerous film and television adaptations. These range from early English versions such as A. V. Bramble’s “Wuthering Heights” (1920), William Wyler’s Academy Award-winning 1939 adaptation, and Peter Kosminsky’s “Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights” (1992), to reinterpretations across many languages: the Hindi films “Hulchul” (1951) by S. K. Ojha and “Dil Diya Dard Liya” (1966) by Abdur Rashid Kardar and Dilip Kumar; Jacques Rivette’s French “Hurlevent” (1985); Luis Buñuel’s Spanish “Abismos de Pasión” (1954); Yoshishige Yoshida’s Japanese “Arashi ga Oka” (1988); and the Filipino film “The Promise” (2007), among many others.Each of them is an improvised version of how the director interpreted the novel. Somehow, it snatches the Brontean aura away. They either failed to reach the intensity of the original work or exaggerated the narrative. For example, in Wyler’s version, the story concludes after Catherine’s death and shows her ghost and Heathcliff roaming around the Moors. Both Andrea Arnold’s and Timothy Dalton’s movies end with Catherine’s death as well. “Arashi Ga Oka” or “Onimaru” succeded to portray the gruesomeness a little. The Japanese Jidaigeki film takes place in the Muromachi Period. The era setting does justice to Gothic Literature. It showed Onimaru (Heathcliff) played by Yusaku Matsuda, desecrating the grave of Kinu (Catherine) played by Yuko Tanaka, to be with her.The director portrays the second generation through Onimaru, whose cruelty toward Kinu (Cathy), played by Tomoko Takabe, carries an unsettling sexual undercurrent. Hence, the Japanese culture is sculpted into the novel’s essence. When anyone adapts this novel, they need to realise that the novel is not only about tragic love, but also about revenge. There is a role of fate that etches Catherine and Heathcliff as the star-crossed couple in the history of literature. from the abandoned boy of Liverpool to the owner of the estates, from the boy who kept track of being with Catherine, on almanack, to the boy who hanged Isabella’s dog, Fanny- it is a whole journey.Catherine is an impulsive character, but her character faces major twists twice in the plot: one when she stays at the Lintons’ and is bedazzled by their wealthy, lavish lifestyle; two, is when Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights. No wonder it is an extremely complex plot, where the characters, the generations, timelines, and narrators are intertwined. Even on the crust of the novel, the names of the characters can be confusing for the reader- there is Catherine, Cathy, Heathcliffs, Lintons, and Linton Heathcliff. [...]Everything is very extravagant; the actors did a great job. But following Theseus’s Paradox, if a director replaces the contents of a Novel to adapt it, does that remain the same work? Amidst censoring the main plot, characters, and changing the characters, where is Emily Brontë? Among many things that make “Wuthering Heights” (1847) unique is the yearning. The audience craved for the characters to be unified, but Brontë brutally sets them apart till they die.Fenell messed with this important part and united them physically. She laced the plot with sadomasochism, clandestine sex, and, as I mentioned before, sitophilia. Brontë provided two narrators, which made the plot even more intricate. Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean both narrate the story, and it is affected by their personal preferences. Fenell debarred Mr. Lockwood, which messes with the audience’s perspective.To conclude, I will repeat, as an admirer of “Wuthering Heights” (1847) and a movie buff, its adaptations do not do justice to it. While I discussed this point, referring to other works, the major focus here is on recent work by Emerald Fenell. The novel does not define hate, love, obsession, or revenge. It is totally upto the audience how they decide to fill the silence. In the future, maybe there will be more adaptations, and they’ll be the versions of the directors. As an audience member, I eagerly wait to see when someone actually portrays Emily Brontë’s version on screen. (Shivangi Thakur)
I’m not a canon truther. I do not believe that you need to be scholarly about the original anything in order to engage with its adaptations. But I do believe that the party who adapts it (Fennell and the LuckyChap team) should at least respect the original material. Since the Elordi casting, the whole film has left a sour taste in my mouth. (Sara Li)
After completing nearly a month in theaters worldwide, Oscar-winning writer-director Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights has passed what will likely be its final major box office milestone. The movie opened to divisive reviews around Valentine's Day, and rode a wave of controversy to bona fide blockbuster success. It has surpassed its reported break-even point after accounting for the exhibitor–studio revenue split. [...]With around $80 million domestically and another $130 million-plus from overseas markets, Wuthering Heights has grossed $213 million worldwide so far. (Rohan Naahar)
Other scholars cite the genre’s pedigree. Though canonized as literary classics, 19th century novels like “Pride and Prejudice,” “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” can also be read as romances — stories written by women and centered on women’s emotional lives, courtship and desires. In a world circumscribed by the era’s narrow gender roles, these works featured clever, often headstrong women who exercised agency over their love lives and fates.In my view, this explains their popularity: 19th century readers may have found vicarious pleasure in Jane Eyre’s journey from timid governess to independent heiress and happy wife. Likewise, Catherine Earnshaw’s decision to marry the wealthy Edgar Linton, thus abandoning the penniless Heathcliff, may have struck the female fans of “Wuthering Heights” as an understandable choice.As readership grew and men penned their own novels, aiming to cash in on the expanding market, their perspectives dominated, pushing women’s fiction to the side. Changing social mores also made the once popular “woman’s novel” seem dated. (Diane Winston)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is a literary mainstay today, but it sparked a bit of a scandal when it came out. The book was criticized for its perceived feminist themes and was considered “coarse” and uncouth by Victorians at the time of its publication. One particular review, published in the Quarterly Review, accused Brontë—then writing under the male pseudonym of Currer Bell—of “moral Jacobinism,” or essentially trying to spark a revolution. At the time of the review's publication, rumors that Bell was a woman had begun to swirl, and the critic claimed that if this was the case, Bell had “forfeited the society of her own sex.”The book was not actually formally banned in England, though it did face harsh criticism and attempts to censor it, particularly among young women. It was, however, censored by the Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution along with many other Western texts, when it was deemed to have the potential to influence and corrupt young people. (Eden Gordon)
Still, if anyone in pop music has come close to making a truly forlorn, misty, and gray soundtrack for Brontë’s work, it is not “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now,” nor is it Charli XCX’s accompanying album to Fennell’s film, nor is it even Kate Bush’s breakout hit. The closest anyone has come to capturing Wuthering Heights is an odd, middle-period Genesis album called Wind and Wuthering.Somehow, Genesis averted disaster. For years, the English prog-rock band was best known for the theatrics of its frontman Peter Gabriel, though the group’s music was written collaboratively. After Gabriel’s highly publicized departure from the band in 1975, the remaining members regrouped as a quartet and tapped drummer Phil Collins to be its lead vocalist. The band’s first post-Gabriel album, 1976’s A Trick of the Tail, was a surprise success, rebuking any doubt from fans and press that the band couldn’t survive without Gabriel. It landed in the top 3 on the UK album charts, and its tour was “their most successful tour of America ever,” according to contemporaneous press materials.Eager to follow up Trick, Genesis churned out another record in their first post-Gabriel year. Wind and Wuthering is A Trick of the Tail’s moody sister: it’s lush, dreary, and gloomy. The LP is also Genesis’ last with guitarist Steve Hackett, who felt his contributions were ignored in favor of keyboardist Tony Banks’s expansive, spacey arrangements. The result is a transitional moment in Genesis history, captured directly between the band’s two main eras. The group was not yet the sleek, drum machine-powered juggernauts penning pop hits in the ‘80s, nor were they the high-concept band donning costumes for multi-act live shows. Wind and Wuthering finds them trying to solidify what that new iteration of the band was capable of.There are explicit references on Wind and Wuthering to Brontë’s work. The album was named after the novel, and its two-part instrumental tracks “Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers…” and “…In That Quiet Earth” directly quote its final line. Colin Elgie’s album artwork is monochromatic, misty, and empty, evocative of the wild moors Brontë’s book is famous for. Some fans consider album-closer “Afterglow” to be sung from the perspective of Heathcliff.But what makes Wind and Wuthering a surprisingly effective interpretation of Wuthering Heights is not its direct references to the text, but the way Genesis conjures the novel’s spectral setting—its cold winds, empty houses, and lonely rooms. Unintentionally, Genesis stumbled on the feeling of the place. When Gabriel departed the band, he left behind a colossal amount of space in their musical arrangements. His vocals employed accents and different intonations. No matter what he did, he had a magnetism that could be pompous, irritating, and entertaining, sometimes all at once.Collins was a more direct singer. Rather than try and fill the space that Gabriel left behind, Wind and Wuthering feels cavernous. Three of the nine tracks on the album are instrumentals, and songs like “One for the Vine” or “Eleventh Earl of Mar” contain long, meandering instrumental passages. Its lyrics—entirely absent of any Brontë-related details—are an afterthought. It’s prog-rock without any of the play-acting. The focus here is solely on atmosphere, one that is panoramic and eerie. Banks’ keyboards curl like smoke on “One for the Vine”; his layers of organ blanket “Eleventh Earl of Mar,” like the snow that locks its inhabitants into Wuthering Heights. As is the case for Brontë’s writing, Wind and Wuthering could be unexpectedly tender (“Your Own Special Way”) and violently unpredictable (“…In That Quiet Earth”).Every musical adaptation of Wuthering Heights falls into the same trap—artists recontextualize Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship into one of pop music’s favorite tropes: unrequited love. On her Wuthering Heights album, Charli adopts an overtly lyrical, metaphor-driven writing style, singing of the cruel “Chains of Love.” Apparently this is a necessity when adapting a Victorian literary classic, though the lyrical method doesn’t suit her nearly as well as BRAT’s directness. On “Wuthering Heights,” Kate Bush assumes Catherine’s perspective, pining for Heathcliff and escaping from the cold. It’s certainly the best song inspirel. This very English, very creaky, and very hollow album conveys well the central feeling of Wuthering Heights: isolation.Frankly, there’s no reason that Wind and Wuthering, an album made by four music nerds who showed little actual interest in Brontë’s novel, should receive the recognition of “Best Wuthering Heights Soundtrack.” Unlike other adaptations, the band had no intention of actually invoking d by Wuthering Heights, but it also reframes this novel as a story of tortured love. Genesis circumvents the problem of portraying Cathy and Heathcliff by not portraying them at al Wuthering Heights. It just felt right, considering the album’s windy, frozen tone. Perhaps the fact that a band like Genesis made a worthy Wuthering Heights interpretation isn’t a reflection on their robust engagement with the text but as a testament to Brontë’s un-adaptability. For all our fascination with Wuthering Heights, the novel’s incomprehensibility is what makes it so compelling. As text-purists criticize Fennell’s untethered reading of the novel, it begs the question: Can anyone really do this book justice? (Andy Steiner)
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Thu 12 Mar, 7:30pmOnline via ZoomFrom Shakespeare to Brontë, Anna Calder-Marshall has brought to life many iconic characters over her illustrious career on stage and screen. As well as a long career in theatre, Anna’s select television credits include Bodies (Netflix), Strike: Troubled Blood (BBC) and This England (Sky); with film credits including Queen at Sea, which will premiere at Berlin International Film Festival 2026.Join us as we welcome Anna to the Brontë Lounge as she reflects on the production of Robert Fuest’s Wuthering Heights (1970), recalling what it was like to bring Emily Brontë’s heroine to life on the big screen opposite Timothy Dalton. As always, there will be time to ask questions on the night.
While [Matthew Oliver, head of English at Bede’s in East Sussex] believes the “canon is still relevant as an idea”, he thinks some exam boards have been “quite narrow at GCSE” and wants to teach the best of literature in English – whether that’s a Nigerian novel, an American play or a text in translation.“We must give the sense that literature is still being written about the world we live in now,” he says. So, if his pupils are studying the urban poverty of “Jane Eyre” or “David Copperfield”, Oliver might also get them to read “Shuggie Bain” by Douglas Stuart or “Only Here, Only Now” by Tom Newlands.“What I insist upon is the freedom to combine what we believe to be the best of our canonical classical texts with something that is contemporary and brilliant. I think that combination is incredibly powerful.” (Amanda Constance)
Re-reading the novel recently, though, after years of dating discourse, red-flag literacy, and too many TikToks dissecting toxic men, was a shock. What once seemed romantic now felt like emotional manipulation and abuse. Heathcliff’s obsession, guilt-tripping, and rage seem to be the foundation for modern “problematic faves”. [...]But in today’s world, the novel makes clear quite a few things. Heathcliff isn’t a misunderstood dream lover. He is cruel, bitter, and abusive. His love for Catherine may be “deep and unshakable”, but it is also possessive and punitive. When Catherine marries the neighbouring landowner Edgar Linton, Heathcliff doesn’t simply grieve; he disappears, returns wealthy, and spends decades effecting a vengeful campaign that devastates two families and spills into the next generation (a reckoning most screen adaptations conveniently minimise).His most famous outbursts sound romantic until you really listen. “Haunt me then!… drive me mad!” is less a plea for love than a demand for emotional ownership. “You teach me now how cruel you’ve been” reads like an early template for manipulative guilt. Heathcliff’s fury at Catherine’s autonomy is the crux of the novel, and his sense of entitlement to her love is repeatedly framed as justification for cruelty.And yet, for generations, Heathcliff has been sold as passion incarnate. The question is why. Why have we been taught to read violence as depth, volatility as intensity, and obsession as destiny? Heathcliff exposes how patriarchy dresses cruelty up as romance, teaching women that love should hurt — and that pain is proof of meaning.That legacy is everywhere. From Gothic literature to dark-romance paperbacks, from brooding immortals in Twilight to today’s morally grey BookTok obsessions, Heathcliff’s DNA persists. He is the original red-flag romantic hero, the man whose damage is framed as allure, whose trauma excuses his harm. (Teja Lele)
Fennell is under no obligation to produce a faithful adaptation, yet she offers little new critical insight. It feels frustratingly one-dimensional, failing to engage meaningfully with the novel’s concerns of class mobility, generational trauma, and patriarchal constraint. Heathcliff’s rise to wealth remains underdeveloped, displaced by an emphasis on his humiliating, BDSM-tinged relationship with Isabella, played with comic flair by Alison Oliver. While entertaining, moments such as her crawling on all fours undermine a character who, in Brontë’s 1847 text, embodies resilience. Isabella’s escape – culminating in her declaration, ‘I’ll smash it!’, as she casts away her wedding ring – constitutes one of the novel’s most radical assertions of female autonomy within nineteenth-century patriarchy. Comic exaggeration reduces such defiance to spectacle, eliminating the novel’s interrogation of gendered power.Despite these inconsistencies, the adaptation has reignited interest in the novel, surging book sales and thus prompting a renewed readership. If Fennell’s film achieves anything, I would hope it is in renewed attention to the novel itself. Readers returning to Brontë will encounter a work of far greater moral extremity and narrative daring than its stylised reinterpretation suggests.Ultimately, Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” is best approached with caution. However visually striking, the adaptation fails to capture Brontë’s structural and psychological daring. In watching the film, we learn that appearance alone cannot sustain a story of such emotional and thematic depth, and what remains is a version that gestures towards Brontë’s vision without ever fully grasping its power. (Sophia Elston)
Wuthering Heights Obsessed"Heathcliff! It's me, I'm Cathy, I've come home and I got you a really good birthday card. Let me in your windowwww". If you're willing to walk across the foggy moors of North Yorkshire for someone because you're totally obsessed with them, this is the card for you. Whatever your souls are made of, yours and theirs are the same. Duh.
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Inklings Book ClubFebruary 2026Well, it’s safe to say the whole world is talking about Wuthering Heights. Hello and welcome back to the Inklings Book Club where this month we are reading Emily Brontë’s gothic classic, just in time for the release of Emerald Fennell’s adaptation. And so… who better to speak to than Emerald herself? I caught up with Emerald to chat all things Wuthering Heights, as well as her favourite books and poems.
Dear reader, this is not just a fundamental misreading. No, this is a deliberate bastardization of the story, which, at worst, serves the purpose of being a fantasy for Fennell, or at best, an extremely shallow take on a very complex story. (Juliet Pieters)
Along with its amazing cinematography, the actors brought the characters to life. Robbie and Elordi did a beautiful job bringing a romance full of toxic obsession into reality. One of my favorite scenes was when Heathcliff grabbed Catherine’s corset and lifted her to be eye level with him. The actors did such an amazing job in creating chemistry between their characters that you could feel the electricity between the two.Another reason this movie is a masterpiece is because it makes you feel every emotion. You feel anger watching the dominos fall leading up to Catherine’s downfall. You feel the love and the obsession between Heathcliff and Catherine, even when they hate each other. But most importantly, you feel the story’s darkness, like a chill that never fully goes away. (Addie Gerber)
Some love stories are sweet. Some are messy. Then there’s Wuthering Heights.Few novels are as haunting and emotionally complex as Wuthering Heights, which makes its film adaptation feel distant. By only covering the first half of Emily Brontë’s novel and reshaping the central themes, Emerald Fennell’s movie sacrifices the elements that make the original unforgettable, creating, in essence, a whole different story. Brontë’s novel is not a conventional romance but rather an exploration of the effects of abuse on children and the lasting effects of trauma on their relationships. While the movie appeals to some audiences, booklovers are likely to find it disappointing. [...]If you came for the film’s sweeping romance, the book might break your heart, but its passion, obsession, and unforgettable story will captivate anyone who doesn’t need a happily-ever-after. (Niya Desai and Lucia Rose)
“Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys“She’s mad but mine, mine.”The madwoman trope can be traced back in literature to Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.” Readers are introduced to Bertha Mason: the deranged woman locked in Mr. Rochester’s attic and the ghost that frequents Thornfield Hall. But aside from her role in threatening the marriage of Mr. Rochester and Jane and committing acts of destruction, little else is revealed of the haunted character.More than a century later, in response to “Jane Eyre,” Jean Rhys wrote “Wide Sargasso Sea.” Rhys’ novel is a reimagining of Bertha’s life, acting as a postcolonial prequel to the popular classic novel. Rhys gives Bertha the name Antoinette Cosway and places her in 1830s Jamaica. We follow her mother’s descent into madness after she’s married off to an Englishman and faces trauma and neglect, knowing that Antoinette is doomed to a similar fate. The novel explores the theme of madness as a consequence of patriarchal and colonial oppression, with Mr. Rochester — an intentionally first-nameless character — being the embodiment of these structures.“Wide Sargasso Sea” brings a new perspective to this madwoman in the attic, critiquing the systems that strip Antoinette of her agency and identity while developing a complex and intersectional backstory that has been overlooked. After reading Rhys’ novel, it’s impossible not to view Mr. Rochester, and all that he represents, as the true monstrous figure of “Jane Eyre.”
Getting to some of Yorkshire's towns and villages can be a little awkward due to a lack of rail travel, but thankfully, if you're planning a day out to one of Yorkshire's most famous towns, you're in luck.BrontëBus services, which are run by the Keighley Bus Company, start from Keighley Bus Station, and you can travel in from further afield making use of the Aireline 60 from Leeds, the Shuttle 662 from Bradford, the 62 from Ilkley, and other services from other towns. As a result, it's pretty easy to get started on your journey.The BrontëBus runs every 20 minutes Monday-Saturday, and every 30 minutes on Sunday, with three separate services taking three different routes. However, each takes you through the town of Haworth. [...]For any literary fans, there are plenty of Brontë-based attractions around. If you want to know about their lives growing up, or even visit the home where Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre were written, then you can take a trip to the Brontë Parsonage Museum.Inside you can find artefacts from their lives as well as some information on the sisters themselves, and the long lives of their famous works.Nearby, St Michael and All Angels' Church welcomes visitors, and has engravings dedicated to the Brontës themselves. Their father, Patrick Brontë was once the perpetual curate there, and is remembered on the list of incumbents.There is also a Brontë Memorial Chapel inside, and you can see a marker for the Brontë Family Vault, where a number of the family were buried.If you're looking for something else, then the famous Main Street is filled with shops and things to do. From curiosity shops to book shops, and even pubs.What better way is there to end a trip out than with a coffee and some food, and places like the Haworth Old Post Office, which was still a post office when the Brontës were around. (Sebastian McCormick)
Speaker: Sharon WrightDate: Tuesday,10 March, 2026 in-person at 18.30Maria Branwell Brontë, who gave birth to Charlotte, Emily, Branwell and Anne Brontë, was an educated, well-heeled Cornishwoman who married a penniless curate for love. She moved to Thornton with two little children – and left with six. Hear how this often-overlooked Georgian gentlewoman was the very heart of the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton from Sharon Wright, author of Mother of the Brontës: The Life of Maria Branwell. Sharon reveals how her research throws light on the remarkable woman who put the ‘Birth’ into ‘Birthplace’. This talk will be followed by a book signing.
When most of us think of the Brontë sisters, we are transported to the wild, windswept moors of Yorkshire in northern England, where the celebrated sisters were born and raised – and where many of their books were set.But for a crucial two-year period in the early 1840s, two of the Brontë sisters – Charlotte and Emily – briefly became Brusseleirs. From 1842 to 1843, before their literary careers took off, the women taught at a girls’ boarding school called Pensionnat Heger in the city centre.“Very few people would associate the Brontës with Brussels, and they wouldn't think of Charlotte and Emily Brontë eating waffles in Grand Place – but they probably did,” says Helen MacEwan, a leading expert on the Brontë sisters and co-founder of the Brussels Brontë Group. (...)Helen, who moved to Brussels in 2004, has made it her mission in life to educate people about the Brontë sisters and their time in Brussels. Villette provided her gateway into what she describes as her “obsession” with the Brontës.“Shortly after moving here to work, I re-read Villette and became fascinated by the Brontë sisters’ time in Brussels,” says Helen. “You could say I became obsessed.”The novel resonated with her because, she explains, it is an “expat novel”.“It’s about an expat in Brussels observing, trying to adjust to a foreign city and foreign life. And it feels very modern, not only is it about a working woman, but there's a lot about mental illness in it – depression and isolation – and finding your place in a foreign city.”According to Helen, Charlotte Brontë’s feelings towards Belgium were “intense, but they were also painful”.“It was the place where she fell in love,” she says. “But she had mixed feelings because it was an unrequited love.”Charlotte was, Helen explains, “fairly satirical about the country and the people in general”. She criticised Belgians, primarily for their Catholicism, but also for being “too phlegmatic, too laid back – and for not really caring very deeply about anything”. (...)Over the years, Helen and the Brussels Brontë Group have made valiant efforts to inform people about the Brontë sisters’ link to Brussels – but she feels more can be done by local authorities to promote the connection.“I've always thought that the fact that the Bronte sisters lived here for two years is a really good literary link for Brussels and Brussels has never made as much of it as it could,” says Helen.In addition to the guided walks (organised via Waterstones) the group, which was founded in 2006, has organised numerous literary events over the years to celebrate the Brontë link.Emerald Fennel’s recent film interpretation of Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights, has been a boon for the group, reigniting interest in the sisters’ work among a new generation of readers.While the reviews for film have been mixed to say the least, Helen is not among the naysayers. “Let's just say that I went expecting to hate it, and I found that I was quite well entertained,” she says. “It's just visually so wonderful.” (Katie Westwood)
Hamnet author Maggie O’Farrell has spoken about the figures who have shaped and inspired her career, as she appears on The Independent’s Influence List marking International Women’s Day.From winning the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020 to seeing Hamnet adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company — and most recently transformed into a star-studded film featuring leading British talent — O’Farrell has reflected further on the literary influences that have shaped her work.“There are so many women I look up to,” she says.“Creatively, I think about the Brontë sisters in their passage, writing, all three of them sat around the table and discussing their work and walking around and round the room reading it aloud to each other.” (Lucy Leeson)
Plans for an escape room attraction on a picturesque street near the world-famous Brontë Parsonage in Haworth have been rejected.The application included converting the upper floors of two Grade II listed cottages into an eight-room venue above a cheese shop but planners said the works would result in "substantial unjustified harm" to the building. (Chris Young)
It’s incredible to think that several of the greatest English novels were written by different authors in the same house, let alone that they were all related, and talent as rare as the Brontë sisters seems unbelievable, but in their Yorkshire home, titles like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall were penned by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne.The siblings were born in the village of Thornton, before moving to nearby Haworth, where their father became the perpetual curate at the parsonage – it was this small village, surrounded by sweeping countryside moors and perpetually gloomy weather, that inspired the sisters’ work, although one street in particular unlocked the key to their eventual success.Take a trip to Haworth, and you can visit the Brontë Parsonage, where relics of the family’s creative endeavours and personal lives are on display… You can even see the very spot where Emily succumbed to her weakening health, passing away at the age of just 30, but once you walk a short distance up the street, past the churchyard where you can see a plaque dedicated to Emily and Charlotte, you’re on the main street that runs through the village, and it was here that the sisters were granted access to a world beyond their own.
Last year, fellow Jane Austen fans had a bumper harvest of new shows and audiobooks as part of the 250th anniversary of her birth.And though the response to Emerald Fennell’s 2026 film version of Wuthering Heights has been pretty mixed, there’s no denying it’s brought about a bit of a Brontë boom; sales of the book have skyrocketed.(If you ask us, that’s a good reason to adapt the two Brontë novels that have never had a TV or movie version made).To me, that also means we’re long overdue for an Elizabeth Gaskell revival. After all, the author is said to have been influenced by Austen’s Pride & Prejudice when writing North & South (to great success, IMO).She also wrote the world’s first controversial Brontë biography, The Life of Charlotte Brontë; she had been friends with the subject. (...)I think The New York Times were right to call her a “very Victorian feminist”. And I reckon fans of Brontë and Austen will enjoy her novels immensely; I certainly did. (Amy Glover)
Eat your heart out, Emerald Fennell.You may have the alluring stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi cavorting on the moors in your crimson adaptation of “Wuthering Heights.” But for radioactive romance, you can’t beat Washington.Emily Brontë’s Cathy and Heathcliff are selfish, manipulative creatures, destroying each other and all around them as they indulge their passions and egos. But their damage was kept to one windswept village.With MAGA’s version of “Wuthering Heights,” the far less alluring but equally intertwined Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski have been cavorting over the swamp, scandalizing the capital as they’ve spread their cruelty far and wide. (To Lewandowski’s credit, he didn’t try to kill a dog like Heathcliff did. That’s Noem’s department.) (...)Like Heathcliff, Lewandowski is known as a menacing presence who has been accused of having some dark physical exchanges with women. (Now there’s a dog Noem won’t put down.) (...)Like Cathy in “Wuthering Heights,” Noem was aspirational, always trying to move up. Cathy traded up to the big house nearby; Kristi commandeered the Coast Guard commandant’s waterfront residence. (Maureen Dowd)
Books, unsurprisingly, are his lifelong companions. As a child, he was shaped by classics such as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. (Rashmi Gopal Rao)
Jane Eyre´by Charlotte BrontëA landmark Victorian novel tracing Jane’s journey from hardship to self-respect. Her insistence on dignity and independence gives the romance enduring depth and power. (Sangeeta Das)
And now, the Wuthering Heights 2026 section:
El enorme mérito de la versión cinematográfica 2026 de Cumbres borrascosas es haber destruido, con una ráfaga de ametralladora de utilería FN SCAR–H color rosada, el malentendido –la maldición bienintencionada– trenzado durante casi dos siglos sobre Emily Brontë y su obra.El grito de horror propinado por las lectoras de literatura romántica ante la brutalidad –el grado cero de sevicia– del héroe brontëano del film, Heathcliff, es el grito de todas las generaciones que se rehusaron a aceptar la verdad intolerable de la demoníaca novela original.Ya fuera por razones de marketing, por su asociación con el género de terror, porque las prácticas BDSM exploten las taquillas; ya sea por los motivos más espurios, viles, bajos, antiartísticos y mercantiles, ninguno va a lograr opacar el hecho contundente de que esta versión capturó el espíritu bestial de la novela.Un espíritu que ninguna de las hermosas –románticas– versiones anteriores pudieron tomar. Aunque Lawrence Olivier haya sido el más grande actor trágico inglés y Juliet Binoche atesore toda la espiritualidad de la que carece Margot Robbi; pese a que Ralph Fiennes –¡un Heathclif rubio!– actuara y transpirara el personaje, cosa que no pudo hacer Jacob Elordi; aun así, las adaptaciones anteriores de Cumbres borrascosas son más infieles a Brontë que la directora Emerald Fennelll.A excepción, claro, del genial Luis Buñuel, que con el 1% del presupuesto de Fennelll, bajo los chaparrales tórridos de México y en las peores condiciones posibles, con actores de telenovelas con acento polaco –pese a que la productora se llamaba Tepeyac– logró realizar la más embrujada y fantasmagórica versión de Cumbres borrascosas del cine.El artefacto se llamó Abismos de pasión y, a diferencia del film de Fennelll, el suyo comulga hasta el tuétano con la pasión metafísica, el material del que está hecha la novela. Con sus actores de cuarta categoría, un vestuario lastimoso y los acentos espurios, Buñuel trazó con maestría las tensiones entre una superficie dramática y las profundidades del bien y del mal.Porque Cumbres borrascosas, y eso Buñuel lo entendió muy bien, es un romance metafísico: trata más de fuerzas que de personas. (Translation)
Emerald Fennell’s misbegotten adaptation of ‘Wuthering Heights’ destroys the very structure of Emily Brontë’s classic story. (...)But for most of the film’s running time, I was bored. After about an hour, I began to wonder when, how, and if all of this was going to end. Part of the problem is that for all their strenuous exertions, there’s no chemistry between Elordi and Robbie at all. Elordi is good-looking and swarthy enough, but he doesn’t have the hammy charisma of, say, Laurence Olivier in William Wyler’s 1939 adaptation. It doesn’t help that, for the first third of Fennell’s movie before he makes his fortune and cleans himself up into Hot Mr. Darcy, Heathcliff resembles a stringy-haired, bushy-bearded hobo (like Charles Manson, but a lot taller). Whenever he kissed Margot Robbie, much less licked her fingers, I recoiled on her behalf. (...)Nor is Robbie well-served by the movie’s much-praised but actually ugly and unflattering costumes—the handiwork of Jacqueline Durran (who also designed the costumes for Barbie). Nearly every one of Robbie’s frocks features a tight-waisted bodice that makes her look like an opera coloratura instead of a Yorkshire ingenue, and a neckline (if it can be called that) cut to emphasise her heaving cleavage (I don’t know whether it was push-up bras or nursing, but Robbie isn’t that busty). (Charlotte Allen)
I am a sucker for movie adaptations of literary texts. So, despite the deluge of bad press, I simply had to watch Emerald Fennell’s recent remake of Wuthering Heights. Let’s say, the only good thing to have come out of that experience was my keen desire to revisit Emily Brontë’s first and only novel, published in 1847 under the pseudonym “Ellis Bell”, a year before her untimely death at the age of 30.My singular takeaway this time around is a deep appreciation of the story’s resistance to following a single arc or steady moral compass. The plot is unsuited to quick judgements because it is hard to affix feminist or misogynist labels on the text and be done with it. The psychological complexity of Brontë’s characters creates a slippery cognitive terrain for the reader. The frequent twists and turns in the plot, triggered by the gap between action and intention, leave us confused, unsure of whether to align our feelings with Catherine or Heathcliff, the two central figures. This difficulty also explains Fennell’s Mills & Boons-style interpretation in her movie version. The only way she could attempt to tame, and make presentable, a sublime but rugged masterpiece was by turning it into a Hollywood-style sob story. (Somak Ghoshal)
What remains largely unacknowledged is the middle ground between these poles – between the “savage” and the over-civilised, between material necessity and aesthetic excess. It is precisely this missing middle that makes the film so revealing. In glossing over labour while amplifying wardrobe spectacle, Wuthering Heights inadvertently mirrors the logic of contemporary fashion culture.Clothes come and go. Identities shift. Surfaces remain immaculate. What quietly disappears is the work – and the responsibility – that makes such transformations possible.Wuthering Heights ultimately gestures toward a reality the film itself only partially acknowledges. Beneath the heightened emotions and romantic excess lies a far more persistent force: the clothes that quietly regiment bodies, environments, and outcomes. (Piret Ilves)
Con todo esto, Fenell ha hecho su película importándole un bledo el realismo, la coherencia histórica y, sobre todo, la fidelidad a la obra original, porque a lo que es fiel a su propia visión y a lo que para ella significa la novela. Y, francamente, nada que objetar a esto. La creadora, cualquier creador, puede hacer lo que le dé la gana con los materiales previos. Libertad creativa, se llama eso. (...)¿Que le ha salido desequilibrada y desigual? No hay duda. ¿Que a ratos funciona y a ratos no? Así es. ¿Que es muy bella, pero en algunos momentos parece carecer de alma? También, también. Pero, ¿que esto es cine autoral, por más comercial que parezca la operación y todo el marketing previo? Indudablemente. (Áurea Ortiz Villeta) (Translation)
Esta Cumbres Borrascosas, es pésima, porque no cuenta la historia real, sino que un relato frívolo de quienes son la pareja de actores "bella" de la época. Obvio, no busca ser la versión definitiva y eso está bien, pero no es una película para quien espere un romance gótico clásico. Es una disección del amor cuando se convierte en obsesión. Y en ese sentido, es coherente, aunque no siempre equilibrada, lo cual la hace olvidable. (Leonardo A. Ramiro Reyes) (Translation)
Before we get into the meat of the thing, WB’s Wuthering Heights passed $75 million domestic on Friday and had previously passed $200 million globally on Thursday, with an as-of-Friday $205 million worldwide total. That probably deserved its own post, but... at least for the moment, discussing yet another “not what conventional wisdom says is successful” win for Warner Bros. is yet again a bitter pill. Once again, the likely reward for such efforts will not be fortune, glory, and/or promotions, but another round of consolidation-motivated lay-offs. That’s not even getting into broader concerns about consolidation and the political machinations behind what gets made and why.
A lucky Jacob Elordi fan got the surprise of her life last month when the Aussie actor gifted her with a piece of priceless memorabilia.Patricia Albassit had a chance encounter with the 28-year-old Brisbane-born actor during a commercial flight while he was in Australia to promote his new movie, Wuthering Heights.After landing, Elordi excused himself and ducked into a nearby bookshop and returned with a copy of Emily Brontë's famous novel.Elordi gifted her the book after he signed his autograph and included a message: 'Dear Patricia! I hope the sun comes out for you today. Love, Heathcliff.' (Anthony James)
Hace unos días, el portal Milanuncios anunciaba que el estreno de Cumbres borrascosas el pasado 13 de febrero había disparado las búsquedas del libro en plataformas de segunda mano, que habían aumentado un 455%. Club Victòria y Proa –que disponen de versiones en catalán del libro de Emily Brontë– han explicado a la ACN que el film ha impactado positivamente en las ventas, ampliando y renovando lectores. "Hay una nueva generación que lo ha descubierto, y eso es significativo" sostiene Josep Lluch de Proa. Blanca Pujals, de Club Victòria, cuenta que tuvieron que sacar adelante una nueva edición para servir bien a todas las librerías y subraya que es su título más vendido desde febrero. (...)El éxito de Cumbres borrascosas también ha puesto el foco en otras obras y ha hecho que lectores se interesen por ejemplo por Jane Eyre, de la hermana de Emily Brontë, Charlotte, un hecho que Lluch encuentra comprensible teniendo en cuenta que se trata de otra de las "grandes novelas inglesas del XIX".También lo confirma Pujals, que reconoce que ya se está notando "tímidamente" y que puede ser una tendencia que vaya a más. "Cuando uno empieza con una Brontë, tiene ganas de más", bromea. (Borja Duñó) (Translation)
Incidentally, The Sunday Times Bestsellers list puts Wuthering Heights as number 5 in the Fiction paperback section.
No sabemos quién es Heathcliff. En la novela, es un crío sucio, hambriento y oscuro que el señor Earnshaw recoge en las calles de Liverpool, lo que ahora llamaríamos un MENA, acrónimo que se ha convertido en un insulto que dice más y peor de quién lo enarbola en una manifestación contra un centro de acogida, que de los propios niños solos en un mundo tan violento como el de Cumbres borrascosas. (...)A Heathcliff, de existencia y corazón miserable, nada le importa más que su recuerdo y a los cineastas no les importa que la novela vaya mucho más allá de la muerte de Cathy. Emily no redime a nadie. Todos pierden en Cumbres borrascosas y, sin embargo, cuánta belleza en esta novela despiadada. (Mercedes Corbillón) (Translation)
El Español (Spain) visits Haworth, including the KVWR heritage train, the Parsonage and the moors. El Comercio (Perú) mentions a live Peruvian TV Cumbres Borrascosas from 1964, of which no recording survives. The Telegraph & Argus asks locals about Haworth pronunciation and well... it's complicated.
